It’s time for another episode of The Blacklist. Will we get any answers to anything this episode? It looks like it may be another bloody episode, which I could live without, but where James Spader leads, I will follow. In the highlight reel from previous episodes, they show us Ressler’s ex-girlfriend arriving at his bedside in the hospital again. They also jump back to Red looking up Katherine Hayne on ViCap. She looks like Liz. I need some answers or at least some hints about all of this stuff. One of the many problems with the writing on this show is they drag things out too long. I don’t have the attention span to put things together from three months ago. At least not this many things. I need the plot to keep moving forward.

Red tells Liz the next name on The Blacklist is the Alchemist. The story goes that the alchemist takes regular people and transforms their DNA to make them appear to be whoever the job calls for them to be. The innocent people die, and everyone stops looking for the bad guys because they appear to be dead. We are really going to have to suspend disbelief this episode it seems. But hey, James Spader!

Red won’t come in to headquarters because he believes there is another mole. It seems pretty obvious it is Meera Malik the CIA field agent assigned to Reddington’s security detail. Perhaps, too obvious. Red doesn’t seem to have it figured out just yet, so how could we? Right? He’s got a team working around the clock to locate the mole.

Red meets Liz in a church to discuss The Alchemist. He explains how the alchemist works, how he changes the DNA and dental impressions of people to make them appear to be someone they are not. He also tells her that the mob informant and his wife whose death he just faked came to him for help as well. So Red knows where they went. If they are mob informants who have already informed, why does the FBI need to find them anyway? In exchange for Red telling Liz where they are, Red wants Liz to promise she will try fertilized duck eggs. Because that is how Red rolls.

Liz, Ressler and the CIA woman are in a bar looking for the informants. Ressler talks about his ex, Audrey who is getting married. He hates her fiancé and is not looking forward to getting together with her to talk about the wedding. Their target, the mob informant shows up at the bar. I wonder where they are. I am guess about half a block from headquarters where all the bad guys get nabbed. The informant tries to make a break for it, but Ressler catches him! Ressler who was walking with a cane last episode and who is pretty much an inept mess, catches a bad guy. This is too good to be true!

Tom is home from “Nebraska.” Tom says that he ended up not going to the interview. He said he thought about it and decided that with Liz’s dad recently dying, he could not feel right about making Liz choose between him and her job. Tom and Liz are talking about adopting a child that is due in six weeks. Tom says that Liz has no many secrets and he doesn’t have any secrets. Well, he does have one, he watched the latest Real Housewives episode in Nebraska without her. Something tells me, he has more secrets than Liz.

Liz and Red meet in a synagogue to discuss how The Alchemist does his work.

The alchemist kills the informant’s wife after asking their attorney’s name. He knows he has been compromised. Meanwhile Ressler is interrogating the informant. The informant’s attorney arrives only it is not his attorney, it’s the alchemist. The informant had never seen the alchemist so he doesn’t recognize him. Oh! The capture of the informant happen 4,500 miles from DC. The bar did have a lot of Asians. Finally, something happens that is not within walking distance of FBI headquarters. The alchemist gives the informant a piece of gum. The informant is dead and the alchemist has disappeared.

Red’s team is using technology to reassemble a ton of shredded documents to discover the mole. Liz thinks she has found a bank account number used to pay the alchemist in a rental car he used. That seems sort of sloppy, and Red is skeptical. He leads Liz to discover that the number she found is actually a serial number from a piece of his lab equipment. Liz and Ressler start investigating that angle. Ressler is still upset that Aubrey keeps texting him about her wedding plans.

The alchemist is sifting though headshots looking for someone he can use for his next job. He calls and actress and tells her she is perfect for a part he is casting. Unless Liz and Ressler catch him first, it will be her final role. There was a file on Tom Keen that someone was looking at. It could be the alchemist. But the file was more about floor plans and candid surveillance photos so maybe it was one of Red’s guys following Tom. Then there was a brief shot of a brunette woman, who looks a bit like Liz, who may in fact be Katherine Hayne, from the ViCap file , saying, “Nice to meet you, I’m Jolene.”

Tom and Liz are at a baby shower for the new baby they plan to adopt soon. Next week’s episode is called The Cypress Agency . The Cypress Agency is an illegal adoption firm that steals babies and sells them to prospective adoptive parents. Tom is trying to press Liz to take maternity leave while they are arguing in the bedroom, one of the guests at the shower, who Tom recognizes as a substitute teacher from his school, or so he says in front of Liz walks in them. She identifies herself a Jolene. Liz gets called into work. Tom and Jolene have a moment of idle chatter. Do they know each other?

The alchemist has the actress on the examination table and is changing her DNA to make her into….someone else.

Jolene is giving Tom relationship advice. She suggests he have some fun with Liz and lighten up. She tells him about a photography exhibit the next night. The photographer is a woman who seduces married men and then takes a picture of them in flagrante delicto for her exhibit. Tom says that is outrageous. Jolene says actually it is her show. He believes her. She laughs at him for falling for it. She says she is just a substitute teacher.

Liz and the gang of merry profilers find the alchemist’s lab. They realize that he knows they are on his trail. They try to go and save his family, but they are too late. He has killed his wife and child.

Liz calls Tom and tries to make up. She asks to spend some time together. He suggests the art exhibit. She prefers dinner at home. Tom reluctantly agrees.

Liz reviews the data from the alchemist’s hard drive. She realizes that the wife and child were switched out by the alchemist. She is now working the case as an abduction.

Red is closing in the mole. It looks like it is the CIA agent. Red helps Liz realize that they can find the missing kid using the serial number from her insulin pump. Because that happens all the time. The alchemist is located 70 miles away. The alchemist finds the insulin pump and suddenly knows they have been tracked. At that precise moment the little girls picture comes up on the TV. There is a shoot out at the convenience store where the alchemist and is family are doing some last minute shopping for Fritos. The little girl is accidentally shot.

The SWAT team arrives, as does Liz. Liz defies a direct order not to enter the perimeter and walks toward the gas station convenience store with her hands in the air trying to save the girl. The alchemist and Liz argue. The alchemist’s wife grabs a gun and shoots her husband just at SWAT gets a clean shot. SWAT swarms the building.

Liz calls Tom and says, “Please tell me you didn’t cook.” He says he didn’t, but he is lying. He is sitting alone at the dining room table with dinner. Liz says she will pick up Chinese.

Ressler tells Liz he is going to tell Audrey he doesn’t like her fiancé. Aram walks in and says he has the data base of the missing criminals previously thought to be dead.

Next Liz is in a church with Red again. She gives Red the list from the data base and abruptly leaves.

Audrey and Ressler meet to talk. Ressler starts to tell her she is making a great decision. She interrupts him to say they broke up. Audrey says she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Ressler since she saw him in the hospital.

Tom calls Jolene and asks her if the invitation still stands. Tom goes to the art show with Jolene and throws out dinner, leaving the empty plates for Liz to find when she eventually arrives with Chinese food. Tom seems to be enjoying himself at the art gallery. I suspect Jolene may in fact be the photographer, and his picture will soon be part of the exhibit.

Red is in Meera. the CIA agents office when she comes home. He says, “Hello, Meera, I trust you know why I am here.” She replies, “Yes, you are here to kill me, because I am the mole.”

Next week on The Blacklist, The Cypress Agency is responsible for the kidnapping and black market trading of babies and the FBI plans to put them out of business. Plus, it seems that Meera works a deal with Red that may save her life.

9 responses to “The Blacklist Recap: The Alchemist”

Ok look I know that when Liz signed up for the FBI they never imagined she’d be doing all this crazy Blacklist stuff I’m sure they thought she’d be scaring kids who were illegally downloading porn and Eminem albums BUT DAMMIT TOM YOUR WIFE IS AN FBI AGENT SHE CAN’T TELL YOU EVERYTHING YOU DOUCHE. Ok I got that out.

Great recap! Glad to see we have finally named Ressler and I don’t think we had enough Aram this episode!

OK first I have a question: It looked to me like Liz and Tom were in their bedroom arguing and Joelene walked out of their bathroom – was I seeing things? That possibility threw the whole scene off for me. Also, who gives marital advice to someone they don’t know?? Also, Tom has an argument with his wife and then accepts an invitation from a woman he does not know????? He is so sinister – I believe his secret will be better than who Red really is to Lizzy.

I hope the rest of the cast is THANKING James Spader for helping them have a job because most of them could not hold my interest for two seconds (not you Aram – you’re good).

I enjoyed Blacklist and great recap. I agree that recall on a few story lines need to be brought together. I thought Luz found her husbands box of passports in the floor, so doesn’t she know he is not what he appears to be?
Were those passports planted by Red?
I might have missed something, does anyone know? It was a while back.
I doubt Red would ever trust a mole but I could see him using her for awhile.

I am beginning to think Tom may not be anything but a cheater and his trips to “Nebraska” are something like him having a family there or something and we are being Red herringed LOL The passports I think that was the guy with the apple trying to mess with Lizzie?
Speaking of her, she’s getting a little better I think. I’m starting to believe her a little more.
Ressler. how about that, he has a storyline!
Where was ARAM???
So we are still going with the assumption that Red is her father right?

I so totally don’t KNOW! I MIGHT be moving the Blacklists to a new place soon and I think half the fun is talking in comments and I don’t know if we will have comments! And I would be “the expert” there and I am so not an expert. I need y’all to talk to me! So we shall see.

I thought RED put the passports there., I am not an expert…. I am just like y’all trying to figure this out like you every week. I’m just gonna tell ya, I might get hired somewhere else. I AM NOT LEAVING this blog, but I would love to go blog for the big boys. I’ll never be an expert, I guess I was just happy to be nominated., I don’t even know if they have comments. And if they don’t? What’s the point of me.? I think I am a pretty great blogger, but if we can’t talk,.. I dunno.

l like y’all and think you will go with me if I freeball it a bit. But I am nothing without you guys. And I will have to be all serious and shit and spell things correctly and….well they are long on courtship and short on putting out…. we shall see. I’m a girl that doesn’t need a lot of foreplay.

It was a church, a synagogue (check your spelling if you want to be outraged on behalf of Jews learn to spell) and another church actually, fucktard. Your first post and YOU WANT TO CORRECT ME REALLY? You better be right. But you are not. I am smarter than you, I am prettier than you and you can fuck off. Seriously? How do you cross the street without help? You are a moron, trying to spell check me on your first post which is bad enough. Trying to be offended as a Jew which you are clearly not. BE GONE.

Great recap. I think upgrading Liz’ wig helped me focus on the story. I still forget there is a husband when he is not in the scene. I feel more chemistry when they are talking about their marriage to someone else than when they are together.

The lack of empathy over the substitute dead child really bothered me until Spader saved the day. “Hello, Meera, I trust you know why I am here.” and instantly I’m reminded why I look forward to Monday nights.